3 tips to stop fiddling when recruiting sales professionals.

This is the 2nd edition of the newsletter 'Your Sales Playbook'. A newsletter where we talk about all things related to HOW you can further strengthen, build and capture 'Your Way of Selling', your own unique way of selling. It's about implementing sales processes and best practices. How you can help yourself, colleagues and employees, with winning behaviors, enable growth in your sales organization.

Each week I share one idea, mindset or approach that sales leaders and teams can use to enable consistent growth for their organization. Whether you're a sales director, sales manager, marketing manager or member of the sales team - ready to accelerate sales and marketing performance - you'll always find one action item you can implement each week to get you one step closer to your goals.

My mission is to help you and your organization be more successful in finding, engaging and developing customers.

"In this newsletter you will also find regular discount codes for interesting master classes.

Now, on to this week's topic and the first tips for getting started! ??

"3 tips to stop fiddling when recruiting sales professionals"

Hiring an account manager or a sales manager? We currently complain bitterly that this is so difficult because of a shortage in the job market. But that shortage is not our biggest problem. Because if we then look at how we do this, the entire recruitment process can be summed up in...

"3 x dating and immediately living together"

Then, after some time, we are surprised to find that the "new hire" doesn't quite deliver the performance we had counted on after all. Most organizations tackle it so tinkeringly. The good news ... it can be done differently.

In the Sales Recruitment Masterclass, we go into detail on how to do it. Very practical. In this edition, we give you 3 tips, which we will discuss during this master class and which will already give your recruitment process a qualitative boost.

Tip #1: Stop "Penny wise, pound foolish" behavior.

You 'naturally' recruit for cost reasons only when there is a vacancy. You 'naturally' don't want to employ someone 'too much'. In addition, 'of course' the recruitment costs are not small either, so 'of course' you put the recruitment process into action only when a vacancy actually arises. Unfortunately, this is very short-sighted and enormously costly and therefore not at all 'natural'.

You don't see it, but right now, within your sales organization, as many as 20% of the number of sales people are vacant. It's simple math. Sales turnover averages 20%. This means that a year from now, 1 out of 5 sales people will be doing something else. You may not know who yet, but that it will happen is certain.

Also ask yourself, how much time is there between when someone starts thinking about leaving the firm and when that person actually resigns? Experience shows that this period can be as long as a year. What happens to the sales professional's productivity during that year? Now estimate how much turnover the demotivated sales professional leaves during this period. You understand ... this is a lot of money.

How much time does it take, from the time the vacancy is formally posted and the "new hire" begins? 6 months, 1 year? You name it. And how much time does it take before someone is fully inducted and selling more than he has cost up to that point? How much sales does the company lose during this period?

Add it all up! Looking at the amount that comes out of your calculation, do you still dare to say with dry eyes, that you only recruit when there is a vacancy? And you do this for cost reasons?

Tip #2: Focus on personality and less on knowledge & skills.

Look back at the people you've seen come and go that you weren't so happy with. How often did it not sit well because knowledge and skill were below par? And how often was it about attitude? Usually the latter was the biggest problem. And which is easier to hone? Knowledge & skill or attitude? Attitude is strongly linked to one's personality. And we all know that changing one's personality and mindset is virtually impossible.

It's pretty obvious right? Correctly assessing the right personality, i.e. to what extent the potential account manager has a drive to win, can persevere, has stamina, has intrinsic interest, is hugely important.

How to do this? At least not by "dating" 3 times in the form of job interviews? Interviews where you go by your gut feeling. The same gut that sometimes produces diarrhea. No wonder it goes wrong so often. In our Sales Recruitment Master Class, we go into detail about how you can do this differently.

Another lesson from this perspective; terminate employment sooner than you are used to when someone is not functioning due to personality issues. Ask yourself how often you have succeeded in getting someone to change on these issues....

"A loser, is a loser, so fire faster" ... it will save you a lot of money, time and frustration.

Tip #3: It only begins on day 1 of hiring....

How long does it take until you know the "new hire" is the right choice? This also takes unnecessarily long due to tinkering during the hiring process. During the Sales Recruitment Master Class, we teach you how to find out sooner, how to make timely adjustments and when it is smarter and cost-effective to quickly cut your losses. Because.

"If your gonna lose, lose fast"

Once you have hired someone on the right grounds and mutual expectations have been specifically stated, you can usually make an initial assessment of whether the hiring was smart within the two-month probationary period, with the right tooling.

If you handle the onboarding period better, it also makes more sense to give someone permanent employment immediately upon hiring. If the right tooling is used and you unexpectedly find out after 2 months that the hiring was not a good idea, you can get off relatively cheaply. With an annual contract, however, you are stuck with the employee until the end of the year.

Of course, during the Sales Recruitment Masterclass we will go much deeper into these tips and you will get a lot more advice that you can immediately benefit from in your practice.

What topics can you expect to see in future editions:

Next week in edition 3 we are going to talk about Sales Planning. A subject that in any organization with a normal fiscal year, is now or should be very topical and is extensively covered in the Masterclass Strategic Sales Planning of the same name. (Through this link you can participate at a very attractive discount)
In two weeks, the topic of Persuasive Influencing & Persuasion will be on the agenda. Too often in sales we talk about "awarding" and can't win it enough on ratio. Too often we think that the ultimate differentiating value is in price. In this edition we anticipate the Masterclass Convincing Influencing & Persuading of the same name and give you concrete insights in how you can really distinguish yourself with a good offer so that price and the favor factor become less important.